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While I agree with everything in the article overall I would like to say they aren't the ones running the world. The old rich white guys you never see are the ones in real power and they will not be so easy to dethrone. They think long-term and somehow get their offspring to carry out plans made across generations. Sounds like a conspiracy theory but I only believe what can be proven. The proof was hidden for a long time as they feared what would happen if the people found out. The propaganda machine that serves them so well seems to have confused most of the people as it has for generations now despite the rise of the internet. Now they feel liberated and in control of our fate and honestly I can't blame them because they are currently in charge of where we are going. As long as they are in control of the money they still rule. They have lost their grip before but remember their history unlike the common people. They are very aware of how few of them there are versus the rest of us. Congress is full of puppets, they give the illusion of power but they are all bought and paid for by those that really run things. No matter who you send in the system will corrupt them, it's designed to do so. Our entire system is corrupted to the core, as long as the current economic systems stay the way they are corruption will follow. They have their hands in every single govt on the planet. They will not care if you trade old white guys for young girls of color, they only care about them all doing their will. They will give each country a lot of control over certain things but if you truly threaten them they will take you out. When you see the Federal Reserve go down you will know something is changing. As long as it and their other institutions stand we are screwed. While these changes are moving in a better direction they will not really change the world, it's merely making the lawmakers come in line with those they are supposed to represent. These are the little token changes they allow because it doesn't matter to them whose face is representing the people, they only want their compliance when they ask for it. You are just changing drivers but you are still going to the same place. The Federal Reserve is just an example of their power, nothing special about it. If you think the govt owns it you really should pay closer attention to just who rules you.

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What's good about it? It is a person with brownish colored skin chanting, 'Down with the old white men!'. Isn't that race baiting? I'll cheer when the general public starts holding all of the elected officials accountable whether they are brown, white, yellow or red.

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Well at least there are not as many reactionary comments as I expected. Great post! Thanks.

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Wait just a minute now...

Not having read the article, isn't the title a bit combative?
Does it kind of make the point why some white men refer to themselves as "the only unprotected class in America"?

I'm generally not in the least reactionary, and yet, seeing this, my neck hackles start to rise. And I wonder how people would feel, in this day and age, about an article entitled "The Problems With..." I can't even finish that example, because of the stones that will be cast my way, but you know very well what I'm saying. I thought we weren't supposed to launch attacks on people because of their group identity anymore. I thought we were supposed to be more enlightened these days.

I may be old, but I'm no dinosaur.

"White American Male Dinosaur"? Seriously?

@PalacinkyPDX That's really the point I'm making. Generalizing all white men as a fungible group who are "perpetuating the continuation of this gross imbalance" ignores and denigrates what any particular individual, who happens to be white and/or a man, might be doing.

@Paul4747 But that's the ENTIRE POINT, Paul. It does not MATTER what any individual in the group may be doing, because "the group" STILL retains power all out of proportion to it's size vis-a-vis the general population!
Look, this is not a "what's in your heart" test. This is a "We HAVE to bring more people into the decision-making process, because we've exhausted the solutions this particular group has to offer" soliloquy. In a limited-resources, zero-sum game, the slick, behind-the-scenes manuevering the powers-that-be have engaged in for FAR too long make a lot of sense. But we are standing on the brink of an explosion of possibility the human race has NEVER experienced. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and all the other space enteprenuers aren't doing all that stuff for the good of mankind. They are doing it because they are clearly aware of the UNLIMITED resources available out there, and the concommitant possibility of profit those resources bring. Did you know there is an asteroid out there composed almost entirely of DIAMOND? Oh, it's a small one, only about a mile long, and maybe a quarter mile wide, but imagine the profit if that satallite were dragged into Earth orbit!
We are on the edge of changing the parameters of the human race, and yet we are still arguing over whether all of us should have access to a freakin' doctor! And the powers-that-be simply don't have viable answers for us any longer. Technological progress is happening so fast, so inclusively, so overwhelmingly, that they (the rich families who are TRULY in charge) simply can NOT keep up. That's why it seems like everything is falling apart, because it really IS!
JFK said "We can either make a pathway for revolution to occur, or it will occur violently, but one way or the other, it WILL occur". (Probably paraphrasing there. Pretty sure that's not the accurate quote.) We HAVE to acknowledge that "old white men" HAVE been in charge, and for far too long. And don't mistake me: I AM an old white man! And I see the power structure for EXACTLY what it is: A remenant of a time when all decisions for the world could be made among a small group of men in a single room in a castle. That can't work anymore. And the longer they try to hold on to power, the more the risk arises the human race may very well wipe itself out trying to throw off the shackles those men have imposed upon us.

@ninjarider1 Being color-blind means being color-blind. And gender-blind, and all the other qualifiers-blind. I don't care who has the ideas, if they're good. I only judge the idea.

@Paul4747 Yeah, that SOUNDS real good, and if you can actually DO that, your a better man than 98% of the rest of us! The truth is we are ALL influenced by both conscious and unconscious prejudices, hatreds, and even jealousies that swirl around inside our egos and superegos. You can tell yourself that "none of that matters to me", but I'm willing to bet, if anyone had candid video of you (or me, for that matter), the world would see behavior quite at odds with what I tell myself, OR what you tell yourself!
And your refusal to acknowledge the virtually complete stranglehold old white men have had on the levers of power in the world is indicitive of the "blinders" you are (hopefully) unconsciously allowing to block from your view the aptness of both the points in the article and the comments that have been made so far. You come off like those who preach "not all men" every time the #metoo movement raises the sexual harrassment argument. Your unwillingness to agree with REALITY makes your arguments questionable. And that's a shame, because you are preaching a goal that used to be the ideal. Unfortunately, as the years have gone by, the powers-that-be have shown that making the playing field "neutral" still allows those at the top of the pyramid to retain their position. It is only by actively aiding those who have suffered under the previous system can we make the system "fair". And, to do that, it will neccessitate forcing old white men out of the way. And as an old white man, I say, "It can't happen soon enough!"

@ninjarider1
Economic class has more bearing than ethnicity (although there is an overlap involved). I would be far more receptive to a call to have the wealthy 1 percent step aside and let someone else run the world for a while, that's the real power structure. It doesn't matter what color or sex the other 99 percent are.

When I stop replying to your further replies, it means I'm tired of the subject, it doesn't mean you won.

I'm tired of the subject.

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Hurry the hell up!

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Really enjoyed it.

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Yes, we can't afford them anymore. Funneling all the money to the top 1% is about to stop very soon. It's been going on for way too long, our government has to get back to the people, the real people, the ones who can vote. Not the corporations, they are not people.

I think that is wish that will not happen. The court has said that a corporation is a person, unfortunately.

@Jolanta Doesn't mean we have to let them continue to buy elections, that's where their power lies currently. More candidates are running without PAC money and are being more transparent about where their funds are coming from, we can change a lot by supporting them.

@Ktcyan Yes and a lot by trying to hold the others accountable.

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As and old white male who grew up in the deep south, I can say with certainty that the society that most males in the south (and many others in other parts of the country) want a racist, ethnocentric, and authoritarian patriarchy to be the dominant social form. They ARE afraid that they are losing it, and it scares the shit out of them.The article is on target.

I genuinely hope that their fears are realized, and the sooner then better.

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